About Me

Friday, March 04, 2016

Someone I love
dearly recently posted a link to an online article, praising it as
profound wisdom. When another whom I love also admired the article, I
clicked through and read for myself. Sadly, what I found was not
wisdom. I found arguments that sounded reasonable, but at the heart
of which lay deadly poison. I am so concerned for those whom I love,
and for the author of the article (who is but expressing a popular
sentiment), that I feel compelled to respond. But I didn't want to do
it in bits and pieces in comment boxes, so I'm writing a post of my
own.

You
can read the column here.
The author, ever so gently, excuses the sin of unforgiveness in the
name of speaking for justice. She uses the example of Irish pub songs
to springboard to the racial tensions in America. The reason this is
so wrong is that unforgiveness is a deeper, more pernicious sin than
racial injustice or cultural oppression. Unforgiveness can never be
excused no matter how noble the rationale, and those who indulge it
will ultimately lose all other goods, including justice, as
bitterness and hatred consume their minds and souls.

We
need to remember that justice is a minimum standard for treatment of
others. Ideally, we'll be charitable to each other, but failing that
we can be generous, and if we can't manage that perhaps we can be
kind, but at the very least we should be just. Of course, it's also
true that justice is foundational – without justice, expressions of
kindness or generosity ring hollow, empty expressions of sentiment.
But if justice does not lead to the higher goods, it remains stunted,
a truncated foundation for human relations. Just as foundations were
meant to be built upon, not moved into, so justice points to the
greatest good, which is charity.

Forgiveness
is essential to charity. I cannot be charitable toward someone
against whom I am holding a grudge. Neither is forgiveness optional,
as if it were some lofty goal that only saints can achieve. As Jesus
makes clear in the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matt
18), our not forgiving others can get our own forgiveness
rescinded. Forgiving as we are forgiven lies at the heart of the
central prayer of Christianity. As Peter Kreeft observes, if we
refuse to forgive, we speak damnation on our own heads every time we
pray. Forgiveness does not negate wrongs (the Unmerciful Servant was
truly owed, and justly deserved repayment), and neither does it
negate the requirements of justice. But neither does it become
optional when a certain victim count has been exceeded. Unforgiveness
in the name of an oppressed nation or group or race is merely
whitewash, because ultimately all these things are abstractions. Only
individuals are moral agents, and individuals are commanded to
forgive.

The
cruel irony is that while the sin of unforgiveness is excused in the
name of promoting justice in some arena, be it political or economic
or whatever, bondage to sin is the deepest bondage of all. Ultimately
it doesn't matter how “free” you are economically, or how much
“justice” you've obtained in the political arena: if you're in
thrall to sin, you're a slave. In her column, Ms. Weiss refers to
“songs about killing the English” as “a trope, not an emotional
reality”, and excuses singing them because “we root for the
underdog.” She acknowledges that “hating people is wrong”, but
then neuters her own statement by saying that “telling oppressed
people to 'stop that hating' doesn't work too well.” Odd how Jesus
stood in the midst of a people who'd been oppressed for centuries and
told them to do precisely that. Those who did were freed even though
the political and economic yoke of Rome remained. Those who refused
to remained enslaved in every sense.

The
truth is that the “tropes” which Ms. Weiss considers harmless
because they are “not an emotional reality” are not harmless at
all, but poisonous seeds that have sprouted and borne bitter fruit in
Ireland through the generations. Perhaps the parish priests of
Ireland tended to excise Matthew 18 from the Mass readings when it
came around, or maybe they taught that it didn't apply to the
English, or that it was applicable to individuals but not nations. I
don't know, but I do know that the Church in Ireland, as well as the
Irish people, are now paying a bitter price because the Church there
chose to be a cultural institution interested in preserving its power
rather than the impoverished Bride proclaiming her Divine Spouse's
message of charity – including that difficult part about forgiving.
“Tropes” that keep alive unforgiveness are anything but innocent.
In Balkan Ghosts, Robert
Kaplan recounts how the Serbs commemorated their crushing defeat at
the hands of the Turks at Kossovo Polje in 1389:

On
June 28, 1988, the year-long
countdown to the sixth centenary of Lazar's martyrdom at Kossovo
Polje began when his coffin began a tour of every town and
village in Serbia...The coffin
drew huge, black-clad crowds of mourners at every stop... “Every
[Serbian] peasant soldier knows what he is fighting for,” noted
John Reed, at the front in World War I. “When he was a baby, his
mother greeted him with, 'Hail, little avenger of Kossovo!'”
(Kaplan, Balkan
Ghosts, p. 38, emphasis added)

Six
hundred years.

In
light of these “tropes”, this “rooting for the underdog”
(which Serbians would certainly consider “rooted in a longing for
justice”), does anyone think it coincidence that Slobadan Milosevic
was able to appeal to this bitterness lying at the core of the
Serbian soul? Does it surprise anyone that these same Serbs are now
resisting the flow of refugees across their country – refugees who
are victims themselves, and who have no relation to those who
oppressed the Serbs – simply because the refugees are Muslim?

Unforgiveness
is never innocent. Regardless of the
argument used to rationalize
it, it always bears poisonous fruit. Dr. Martin Luther King
recognized it, which was why he always preached forgiveness alongside
justice. Gandhi recognized this, and though the Muslims and Hindus
had a record of mutual oppression that went back centuries, and both
had suffered under the British occupation, he stood in their midst
and dared proclaim, “stop that hating!” (How
many heeded his call can be seen in the ongoing violence between
Hindus and Muslims.)
Unforgiveness never liberates. To hear a powerful testimony to just
how innocent those tropes sung in Irish pubs are, listen to Irish
poet Tommy Sands' song There
Were Roses.

“And
another eye for another eye, till everyone is blind.”

That's
where unforgiveness leads. Period. Those who condemn forgiveness as
weakness, who refuse to leave offense behind, who fan the flames of
indignation in their breasts in the name of justice, are but chaining
themselves more tightly to a crueler master. There is no freedom down
that road, only more slavery.

Stop
reciting the tropes. Stop that hating. Forgive. It's the only path to
freedom – for an individual, a family, a clan, a race, a nation.
For Irish and English, black and white, Serb and Turk, Hindu and
Muslim – it doesn't matter who. Forgiveness is the only way to
freedom. All other paths lead to slavery.

Thursday, March 03, 2016

I've obviously been slack on the blog activity of late (not that many
would notice), but that's because much of my writing focus has been
on the creative side. Since 2012 I've penned four full-length
manuscripts, one of which was accepted by the only publisher who has
yet dared publish my work. This book, entitled The Accidental
Marriage, was released in
the autumn of 2014 by Ignatius Press.

But herein, apparently, lies the proof that I am a pitiful excuse for a blogger who doesn't have a clue what personal blogs are for. They are for keeping people informed about what's going on in your life, which would include the fact that you had a book published!
Here it is, a year and a half after the book was released, and I've
yet to say a single word about the work on my own blog. I've made
posts reviewing other books, and had my book reviewed on other
blogs, and have even been interviewed on television and radio
about the book, but I've yet to use my own blog to comment on my own
work.

So, a bit late out of my own gate,
here's the story behind The Accidental Marriage.
It's a short book, just over 200 pages, with a fast-moving plot and
only a few major characters. The protagonists, Scott and Megan, are
friends who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he's an
engineer at a tech start-up and she's a clerk in the city office.
They both consider themselves
gay, have respective
partners, and are good friends who meet for lunch from time to time
to share their struggles. The story opens with Megan burdened by the
latest wish of her overbearing partner Diane: to have a baby.
Obviously this requires a
man's participation at some
point, and though a sperm
bank would serve, funds are tight and cheaper options are attractive.
Seeing a way to help, Scott blithely offers to donate sperm to the
cause with no strings attached. After a few tries, eventually the
donation succeeds and Megan becomes pregnant.

Then things start to come apart.
Diane turns on Megan, now seeming to despise both her and the unborn
child. Her deteriorating performance at work causes Megan to lose her
benefits, including health insurance, and Scott offers to assist by
getting her on his policy. This forces a rupture in his
already-strained relationship with his partner Greg, as
well as the most startling adjustment of all: in order to get Megan
on his policy, Scott has to marry her. This they do, merely as an
administrative formality.
When Megan loses her job and
her relationship with Diane totally collapses, Scott offers her a
place to live, essentially as a roommate. Scott and Megan work out a
simple, mutually beneficial living arrangement that endures even
after the birth. They have a little girl, Grace Marie, who is a
much-loved addition to their lives.

Then Scott's secure world abruptly
flies apart. The tech firm that employs him is secretly bought out,
and he loses his job in the midst of severe economic conditions (the
story opens in summer of 2009, so the story unfolds in the shadow of
the Great Recession.) With no connections or resources in the Bay
Area, the couple is forced to return to Scott's small hometown in
Michigan simply to survive. Once there, Scott takes a relatively
menial job, well below his abilities, just to keep food on the table,
and both he and Megan have to grapple with the seeming collapse of
all their dreams and intentions for their
lives, as well as the additional burden of a baby.
Scott finds that the relationships which were so easy and fulfilling
when he had a surplus of resources are
now chafing and burdensome, hindering him from living the carefree
life he wants. Finally he is forced to confront some of the darkest
corners of his heart as he struggles with what he is living for, and
what matters most to him.

Through these trials Megan and Scott
learn more about themselves and each other, and grow in understanding
of what it means to be human. Their friendship and commitment deepens
even as they question many of the assumptions that have been driving
their lives. The story ends on an ambiguous note: both still consider
themselves gay, but have a renewed commitment to their life together.
They still view their marriage as a formality, but there's a hint
that it may deepen in the future. There is hope, but resides
completely within the friendship they share.

When The Accidental
Marriage came out, it was well
received by some, but in other corners it sparked no small amount of
controversy and even scorn. Seeing that the protagonists considered
themselves “gay”, some took up the book in hopes of it being a
sympathetic portrayal of that aspect of their lives. Others
approached it in hopes of finding a morality tale that would end in
either the bitter reaping of a sown harvest or a dramatic
renunciation of sinful
lifestyles. Since neither
eventuality unfolded, both parties were disappointed, and said so.
But many read the story for what it was: a tale of human brokenness
and movement toward love. They
are the ones who saw most clearly what it was about.

But, since I'm the author, I'm able
to explain what others can only guess at. One is the “gayness”
issue. This facet of the tale
was what generated the most discussion, and the biggest amount of
disappointment – in some corners because it sympathetically
portrayed characters who considered themselves gay, in other corners
because it didn't celebrate their “gayness” enough. But I'm about
to let the cat out of the bag here: the fact that Scott and Megan
consider themselves gay is a minor plot point, invoked for a reason
that has nothing to do with anyone's agenda. There's a sense in which
it's almost irrelevant.

What?
With “gayness” having such a high chatter quotient in modern
society, wouldn't
it make sense to exploit that? Sure, if you wanted to write a book
about “gayness”. But I didn't. What I wanted to write was a full
frontal assault on one of the most dangerous idols of our society,
and having Scott and Megan consider themselves gay was a good way to
stage the attack.

The
idol to which I refer is what I call The Myth of the Everything
Relationship, the persistent and unquestioned assumption that there
is one relationship out there that can complete, fulfill, and satisfy
you. This is epitomized in the concept of the “soul mate” –
the
mystical
party for whom you spend your life searching and who, once found,
brings meaning and purpose to your life. This idol is worshiped by
gay and straight alike, and has even been enshrined even in Christian
circles, with Scriptural imagery and passages used to justify this
view of romantic relationships. Even
the ancient institution of marriage has been pressed into service of
this lie, seen as something subordinate and secondary to romantic
fulfillment (as witnessed by the countless songs, stories, and movies
that revolve around a married people discovering their soul mates
somewhere outside their marriage.) Yet
in all my nearly 60 years, I don't think I've found a worse enemy of
happiness and virtue than this idol.

I
discuss this somewhat in my post A Most Terrible Idol,
but when I took up my pen to write a story about how love could, and
arguably should, flourish outside the reach of this dangerous
illusion, I found myself in a bind: how to portray a love that grew
out of the reach of “romance”? How to portray a relationship
built on self-giving charity that wouldn't risk invoking the shadow
of the “soul mate”? In years gone by, the answer would have been
easy: write about a friendship between people of the same sex. But,
as Sheldon Vanauken predicted, that gate has been
closed by the common acceptance of same-sex romance. But how about if
one wrote about two people of the opposite sex who were themselves
same-sex attracted? Would not their presumptions about their own
“gay” identities serve as sufficient insulation to prevent them
“falling in love”, and force them to deal with each other out of
straightforward charity? That was my hope, and that was the reason I
chose to have Scott and Megan consider themselves gay – not to
celebrate or to denigrate that, but to make use of it for a
different reason.

That
reason was to explore what marriage truly is – not as a culmination
or stamp of validity on a mystically preordained romantic
relationship (which is what the concept of a soul mate is), but as a
permanent intimate relationship focused on supporting each other and
any consequent children. As a relationship of sacrificial love that
endures despite transient emotional states. As a deep determination
to will the good of the other regardless of cost. That's what Scott
and Megan discover as they forge a life together – one without
sexual or romantic attraction, but with a firm intent to help the
other.

Another
point that came up in various critiques was that the treatment of the
ancillary relationships. The story is mostly told from Scott's
perspective, and other parties incidental to both Scott and Megan's
lives are given scant treatment, including the partners they have at
the opening of the story. The reader isn't given much of Scott's
history and almost none of Megan's, and other characters are minor by
comparison.

I
admit this freely: I deliberately chose not to build up those other
characters or explore those relationships. I did this for a couple of
reasons, one tactical and one strategic. The tactical reason was that
I understand that I'm writing for the “post-Postman”* generation
who was raised on video stories and prefers texting because e-mails
are too laborious. This is the generation that prefers a movie about
Narnia because the books are too tedious. Few anymore relish long,
intricately plotted novels with a cast of hundreds, rich character
development, and complex nests of relationships. Those who do will be
disappointed by the sparse, quick-moving plot of Accidental.
For that I make no apologies.

The
strategic reason is that a principle of good writing is to not
involve too many characters outside the circle of your main one(s).
Even adept readers can only follow a handful of characters, and the
further out you get from the core protagonist(s), the harder it is to
follow the story. Thus, I didn't want to get too far from the main
character. Scott and Megan were the first layer out, and everyone
beyond was yet further removed. But wait – what? Aren't Scott and
Megan the central characters, and layers of relationship counted out
from them?

No.

The
main character, the party around whom the story revolved, was Grace.
The baby. Her presence weaves its way through the story and looms
over the lives of her parents, and through them, all the other
parties in the book. She is the driving force from the first pages to
the last, bending Scott and Megan's lives to her needs. Though the
story is told through their eyes (mostly Scott's), they
are the secondary characters. Interestingly, the artist who designed
the book's cover cottoned to this when he first read the manuscript,
which partly explains the “flying baby” motif. He spotted that
the driving question of the book was, “Who'll catch the baby?”
Grace was brought into existence on a whim, but once she was there,
she
changed everything.

So
there you have the secrets. I figure I wouldn't be sabotaging any
sales by making these points so long after the book's release. There
are more, but if you want them, you'll have to get the book and read
it.